


Thank God It's Fried Chicken

by iftheycare (RedMushroom)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Music, Denial of Feelings, M/M, Queen References, Singer Arthur, unwanted confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 21:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17231510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedMushroom/pseuds/iftheycare
Summary: In London it's not unusual to discuss Christmas in August.AU where Arthur's the frontman of "The Knights" and Merlin's a music critic.





	Thank God It's Fried Chicken

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, welcome to a late christmas fic set in the summer. The usual warnings are:  
> 1) be aware I'm not a native speaker and that I've decide to translate this from italian, so I'm not sure it flows as it should. Consequentely, the grammar might be a little off sometimes. Please, feel free to point out all the mistakes. I'll be eternally grateful to you.  
> 2) This fic should be a part of a much larger project that I haven't written yet (sigh).  
> 3) yes, there are some references to Queen.  
> Thank you all for reading!  
> Ps: one sentence is intentionally left in italian.

Arthur walks out from Kensington's studios, and Merlin follows. A clump of students lead by a tour leader – probably from some sort of summer camp – swallows them both, and a pair of girls suddenly stop their chatting to look at Arthur, who bows his head to hide behind a baseball cap like that thing can make him invisible. 

  
“Ma è Arthur Pendragon” one of the girls squints, reluctantly moving away.

  
Of course, a baseball cap cannot make Arthur invisible. However, Merlin could have it done in a blink – he could make the world forget about Arthur’s existence if he’d asked. Or he could simply tell Arthur that he’s a royal idiot. You never know what Merlin can say, maybe that’s his appeal, that there’s no line between the mighty sorcerer and… well, Arthur looks at him while Merlin tries to prevent his cold tea from spilling all over his shirt. He has that cup with him since the morning.

  
(“Well, I can warm it up whenever, can’t I?” which is stupid, because Merlin can make a brand new one without having to carry a tall cold tea with him)

  
“Do you want to talk about it?” Merlin catches up with him as soon as he manages to escape from the passing crowd.  Arthur shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. It should be enough as an answer.

  
**

  
Except that no, it isn’t. It’s never enough with Merlin, who follows him around London’s streets, then down in the tube and who stands in the middle of a picture Arthur takes with a fan, because he saw her staring and he’s tired of all those tweets like  _ look who I’ve seen on the central line! _ With a stolen picture of a random celebrity. Merlin is in the background, sneezing. Arthur can’t wait until the picture’s online, so he can save it on his phone and zoom on Merlin’s face and send the zoomed picture to him every time Merlin’s annoying. Basically, all the time.

  
While they walk in Soho, mixing with the tourists, Merlin keeps talking. About the weird hot weather (“Climate change, I say”), about the dampness and about Gwaine --- who disappeared the week before in Ibiza, messing up everybody’s schedule – which keeps sending him texts. Gwaine is not reachable for anyone except Merlin.

  
“Maybe I’ve should have gone with him” he says eventually, while they’re sitting at The Great Dragon. The restaurant is a Chinese place somewhere in Chinatown, with the peculiarity of being non existent in every map, including Google's. Moreover, it is usually desert, as it is today, which means no one ever bother them – well, if you don’t count the owner. The regulars are mostly magic creatures: wizards, fairies, ghosts of Christmas past. 

  
(Yes, they’re a  _ thing _ , not a mere fantasy of Dickens, and in Arthur’s head the one sitting next to the window is judging him for some Christmas prank done to Morgana in their childhood. Those ghosts are vengeful creatures) 

  
Regardless of the ghosts, Arthur decides to focus on Merlin “You, in Ibiza?”   
He opens the menù “What’s wrong with that?”

  
First of all, Arthur has been to Ibiza before, and he hasn’t liked it that much. Second of all… okay, he doesn’t have a second point, but if Merlin’s going, he’s going, so that’s the wrong part. Merlin’s eyes glow with satisfaction, Ibiza is packed with places like the tavern and Merlin does like a good tavern. Arthur elegantly pouts. “Wait,” he says “You  _ knew _ he was leaving and you didn’t tell me?”

  
Disdain came out with his voice, a hint of  _ how could you _ left unsaid. This finally makes Merlin raise his eyes to Arthur. He looks candid, but the truth is Merlin’s having fun, that bastard, it’s no use to pretend otherwise. “Uhm, he did ask if I wanted to leave with him  _ before _ booking the flight”

  
Arthur straightens up a little, a warm hole spreading in his chest and raising up in his throat. Betrayal is a term that would fit the gripping feeling in his stomach, although it’s there without a reason. It’s not like Merlin has gone with Gwaine, like Arthur doesn’t acknowledge that there’s a different bound between him and Merlin, something that he still can’t put his finger on. And it’s not like Arthur’s leaving for war and Merlin has decided to abandon him in the time of need. Yet, he feels flustered. 

  
“ _ You knew _ ” Arthur’s voice is filled with accusation. He takes off his cap with a huffy gesture “And you let him go”

  
“He needed a break”

  
Arthur squints and thinks about how much Gwaine will regret all his life choices when he’s back. He’s going to play until his fingers are bleeding.  

  
“Okay,  _ you _ needed a break” Merlin clarifies after a second, not looking up from the rice section, and Arthur would like to reply that he doesn’t need a break, thank you very much, even less if he has no say in it. Especially because, to be fair, he had asked Merlin what he planned to do in August, and the reply has been something about an indie music festival he had to attend for god’s know what newspaper. Since Merlin was working, Arthur couldn’t figure out what to do other than working as well.

  
Arthur clears his throat. “I can’t take a break”

  
“Are you the king?” Merlin mutters with irony “Of course you  _ can _ ”

  
“Then what should I do, join Morgana with the Druids?” he makes a face and realizes that he hasn’t looked at the menù yet. He has wasted all his time trying to decipher Merlin’s face in the pathetic attempt to understand if he would have preferred to be in Ibiza, rather than stuck in London with him.

  
“I think Morgana will curse you if you try”

  
_ True _ , like the fact that Arthur will never choose willingly to spend a month with Morgana in a Druids’ camp. Of course, he’s nothing against Druids, despite his father’s politics and his propaganda about Druids taking their lands and being evil sorcerers. To no one’s surprise, Arthur’s problems are all tightened to Merlin. Druids tend to be intense when Merlin’s around, making Arthur uncomfortable, like he’s looking at Merlin thought their eyes, seeing a different person, one that Arthur doesn’t know anymore. That’s terrifying, the idea of Merlin being off, being a less stable part of his life.

  
“To hell with that, she’s going to do it anyway once she knows I’ve rejected that offer”

  
“I’ll think about a counter course”

  
Arthur looks at him without much hope. Merlin raises his eyebrows. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind next time a fairy prince will try to kill you”

  
“No fairy prince has ever tried to kill –” Arthur stops when he reads Merlin’s expression “ _ Oh _ ”

  
He doesn’t even know why he’s surprised. Since when The Knights have hit the music scene – or to put it better, since Uther Pendragon has become the prime minister, every creature in posses of magic has tried to seek revenge against Uther. Apparently, Arthur is their favourite target. It took him months to figure it out, and to understand that he was alive thanks to Merlin – who wasn’t as mentally challenged as he’s pretended to be.

  
“Anyway, Morgana will kill me. She’s far more dangerous than some fairy princes”

  
Merlin smiles like there’s no reason to be afraid, and that’s why Arthur thinks he has a few screws loose. “As long as she doesn’t know about the money offer”

  
“It’s a Christmas album, Merlin. She already knows”

  
“So bad you hadn’t thought about it, then” they’re back when they’re left in Kensington after Arthur has declined the proposal. 

  
“It’s not for us”

  
“Tell that to Lancelot. He would have you singing in a Santa costume”

  
Arthur shivers “And that’s a kind of kink I don’t want to read about on the internet”

  
Merlin still looks amused and refuses to shut up “You could have done something in a Love Actually style, even if the critics would have attacked you with –”

  
“You would”

  
Merlin raises his hands in defeat “Fair enough. But what if you had written the next  _ All I Want for Christmas is you _ ”

  
What’s Merlin is saying, Arthur’s painfully aware, is what Morgana would have argued about. She would have said that in the United Kingdom, people start to think about Christmas in July. That they sing and broadcast Christmas songs all over the nation, even when it’s not Christmas. A song like that is a door to instant notoriety, but Arthur hasn’t fought to be the new Jingle Bells. It took him too long not to be only the MP Pendragon’s shadow.

  
“Don’t be ridiculous” he manages to say at the end “The only thing remembered of that song is the chorus”

  
Instead of talking back, Merlin starts to hum.

  
“Merlin”

  
“What?”

  
Arthur rubs a hand on his face “What’s that?”

  
“I’m trying to remember the lyrics“ with that he’s back singing, this time a little bit louder. In this way, Arthur is now angry, annoyed and suddenly tired. Outside’s thirty degrees and he’s in no mood for Christmas tunes. Much less if Merlin’s singing. It will hunt him in the days to come, the song would be stuck in his head – worse of all, it will be stuck sang in Merlin’s voice. 

  
“Underneath the Christmas tree, I just want you for my own…”

  
Arthur rolls his eyes, puts a hand under his chin, wondering where’s the old Dragon, if he will take their orders or if the wrong plates will appear on the table, out of nowhere. Before he can ask how, Merlin’s voice is clearer than the Chinese song playing in the background, than people chatting in the next table, and Arthur’s mouth moves by its own volition “… more than you could ever know”

  
He hasn’t sung with him, the phrase is uttered with the same weight of a private whisper, a little bit hoarse and sounding like he has meant it.  Suddenly, Arthur lowers his eyes, fingers gripping steadily on his knees, and with a dry mouth he realizes that  _ okay _ , he’s been staring at Merlin, they stare at each other a lot, it happens when you spend all your free time together. They stare so much that Leon doesn’t want to sit between them in a table. Merlin interrupts the song, trust him to shut up the only time he has not to.  

  
For a long, silent moment, the red and gold wallpaper is so interesting that Arthur has to look at it intensely. He hears Merlin’s huff before he says “See? You can remember the lyrics, it must be the magic of Christmas” all proud of himself. Arthur gives him a look, uneasiness already lost. 

  
“ _ Magic _ ? Is it another of your tricks, you –“

  
“Why should I waste any energy for some lyrics?”

  
Quite right, Arthur has never seen him waste a bit of energy to cast a spell. In fact, magic is what Merlin’s good at – he can do it better than writing those stupid lyrics he never wants credit for, or better than his too-long reviews for Rolling Stone. 

  
“Well, maybe not for a lyrics, but for…”

  
Merlin raises his eyebrows again. Arthur’s cheeks are warm, he’s not going to be more embarrassed than he already is.  

  
Kilgharrah appears out of the blue, with some hot plates in his hands and with some fortune cookies. Obviously, none of them is remotely similar to what they wanted to order.

  
(“No matter how great, one cannot know his order, young warlock. Destiny is not to change” is the lame excuse that the dragon uses to mock them. Often, he thinks that Kilgharrah would have like Uther if he wasn’t a dragon in a human form and if Uther hasn’t been treating magic as a plague to eradicate.)

  
“Anyway, even the Queen wrote a Christmas song. There’s nothing wrong with it” 

  
“We’re not the Queen”

  
“You do share the same passion for chicken”

  
“I’m not writing a Christmas song about fried chicken”

  
Merlin shrugs “It could be what you want more than I could never know”

  
When Arthur almost chokes himself with the rice, the ghost of the Christmas past decides that the pair it’s not worth watching.    
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
